in conversation with fabrizio paterlini

In conversation with Fabrizio Paterlini we discuss his most recent album ‘Winter Stories‘, streaming vs. buying music, live streaming live performances of ‘Winter Stories’ on YouTube and more.

Hello Fabrizio, we hope you are well. Could you start by introducing yourself please and your musical background.

Hello! My name is Fabrizio Paterlini, I am an Italian pianist and composer. I have started composing music back in 2007 when I was 34 years old, releasing my first piano solo album “Viaggi in aeromobile”. Since then, a lot of music has been written and a lot of concerts have been played so far.

Your most recent album, Winter Stories, is composed entirely for solo piano – what drew you to composing for piano and why?

As I was mentioning before, this is how I started and, actually, from time to time I love getting back to the piano solo and composing only using that instruments. When I find myself somehow lost in a multitude of sounds, the best thing that can heal me is sit in front of the piano, turn off all other instruments and start playing only it. It’s the best way to immediately find myself and this is such a warming feeling.

Have you ever written for any other instruments (e.g. strings or synths) and is there anywhere we can hear this music?

My most composite album so far is “Secret Book”, released in 2017, in which, beside the piano, I am using a bunch of analog gear and a string trio. I started this exploration on how piano and acoustic instruments in general interacts with electronics back in 2015, with my “Now” album, but with “Secret Book” I think I made a step further.

Is there a piece that you are very proud of writing? If so, which is it and why?

As you probably imagine, we are never really happy of what we have done, at least this is what I feel. Always something could have been better and chasing the perfection is a long run, that will last over the entire life. That said, there are some pieces I am particularly proud of. “Wind song”, taken from “The Art of the Piano” is for sure one of my favourites, for example. And I love “You, again” taken from my “Secret Book”, in which strings, piano and electronics blend together.

Your music has millions and millions of streams on Spotify, so congratulations for that! What is your opinion on streaming vs buying music? Would you rather people bought your CDs/records or are you happy enough to get a lot of streams?

What I’d rather prefer is completely useless, since now this is the world we are living in (laughs).

Streaming music is a new way of buying, actually. And it perfectly make sense that CD sales and digital downloads are losing markets shares.

I run a small label, Memory Recordings, and for our artists, we are mostly printing vinyl records and not CDs anymore. Of course, if an artist is touring a lot, maybe it makes sense to have CDs, otherwise streaming services perfectly replace that need.

You live streamed yourself performing each track from Winter Stories on YouTube, it was beautiful. What made you decide to do this? And are you grateful for how well it was received?

That was a nice experiment actually! “Winter stories” is the ideal following of one my most popular albums, “Autumn Stories”, released back in 2012.

For “Autumn Stories” the concept was to deliver and release one song for each week of the Autumn season. And this is what I did, composing, recording and releasing on my SoundCloud one song each week, for that Autumn.

With “Winter Stories”, I wanted to do something similar, but also different. I didn’t want to follow the usual path for releasing an album, since the previous “Autumn Stories” had a special way to be released.

So I spoke with my team, to understand if on the technical side we would have some professional results by streaming live directly from my house the songs that would then be included in the album.

It took us a while to organize all the set up and at the end, we made it.

The result is always there, on line for everyone. But I think who had the chance to follow it online in realtime, will have a nice memory of this experiment!

I just got back from a fantastic tour all around Russia and now I am preparing a couple of concerts around Italy for the incoming Fall. Beside that, I am working to the new album which i plan to release in the first half of 2019.